There is no doubt that food is becoming more and more expensive. I search like everyone else for affordable cuts of meat and inexpensive ways to prepare food without a lot of additional ingredients. How do you do this and still allow the flavor to peak through?

Recently while at the grocery store, I noticed a wine sale. There were bottles of Madeira, Cream Sherry and the usual Burgundy, Sauternes and Rose on sale for under $3.00 per bottle. I thought to myself perhaps the wine was damaged, but after speaking to the wine attendant, she graciously advised me that the wine was not selling and had been on the shelves too long, the manager wanted to move in another product and needed to see if he could get it off the shelf. I bought one bottle of each and once home, proceeded to pull out my cookbooks. I substituted the Madeira for chicken Marsala, I used the Burgundy in a beef stew to add depth to the flavor and I added a bit of the Cream Sherry to left over raspberries I had in the freezer to make a delicious vinaigrette. The other bottles I still have in the pantry.

When you are looking for new ways to jazz up old recipes consider cheap wine. I know the rule is to always cook with a wine you would drink and no one wants to drink cheap wine, but I’m not a wine drinker (so that doesn’t apply to me); what I am however is a culinary scientist who  love to experiment and in this particular case the end result was absolutely divine. I did not have mushrooms for the chicken Marsala so I substituted sweet red and orange peppers and garnished it with a bit of chopped green onion; served over brown rice, I must say it was pretty tasty! What kind of wine do you cook with?